Funny Habits
by Enganar
Summary: Post-series AU. A story of what ifs. What if he survived. What if she grew up. What if he lived apart of his old glory. What if she lived apart of life itself... until she saw him. (Spoiler alert.) (Very very wrong pairing alert.)


**Author's Note: **

**This is Archer/Elysia. I was recently dared by a friend to attempt the pairing in a manner that doesn't breach canon (because, honestly, you cannot get one more cracked than that), and an idea seized me. It's been received surprisingly well, so I thought I'd share it. **

**Before you burn me at the stake, a few points: **

**1) This is the far future where she has grown up. **

**2) This is post-series, with a few spoilers for the end eps of FMA, plus some spoilers I've heard for the upcoming movie. It's nothing serious or definite and it won't kill the movie itself for you -- so don't worry -- but it's still a warning for the sake of one. **

**3) Dark fic. R in some places, not a hard-R, but R. **

**4) In this AU of mine, there is no mecha-Archer. I hated that bastardization beyond words. Also, he doesn't die. **

**And onwards... **

* * *

We've all got funny habits, and they never leave us even if we've forgotten why they are. She can still laugh, she can still drape joy across her eyes, and she still remembers how to smile, even if she can no longer feel.

Elysia Hughes doesn't know when it changed -- when she couldn't be happy. It might have been years ago. It might have been yesterday. Maybe she was never happy, not truly, and it took growing up to see it.

But she still smiles. She laughs like nothing bugs her, and when she hugs someone, it's a long time before she lets go. And she grows up from a pretty girl into a warm young woman, playing that part for her friends, her colleagues, and especially for her mother. Elysia's happiness is all Gracia has.

On Sundays, Elysia tells her mother she's going to see papa, and Gracia hands her fresh flowers to lay at his grave.

They end up on the war criminal Frank Archer's bedroom floor.

* * *

Pale light streams in through slits in the heavy bedroom curtains from the fading sun outside. Dust motes waft in these beams of light, and when Elysia steps forward into it, it hits the veins of gold in her ruddy hair.

Hard arms pull her out of that light and against a wall, hands locking her wrists against her back. She pulls against them with a gasp, not to struggle but to test the strength there. She does this every time, and like the Sunday before, these bonds are iron tight.

Her palms open and her body yields. She looks up, squinting through the darkness he prefers. She doesn't know exactly why he likes it dark: it could be because he is hunted. There is little pardon one gets for the attempted murder of a Brigadier General. Even for an old Colonel.

It could be because he's old, even though he moves and carries himself like a man half his age, a man whose resolve stands apart from time. He handles her roughly and with excessive strength, but the gesture itself is frightened and desperate, sometimes clammy, as if he may lose that strength tomorrow.

But the darkness smoothes his lines and dusks his chalky skin, and he's not a lonesome man who's lost everything, but as cold and hard as the statues carved to give mortal shape to otherworldly entities, statues carved and chiselled and pounded and smoothed by human obedience and admiration and... fear.

Elysia fears he may never touch her. She whispers his name to him.

His pale eyes look down on her, cool and unhurried, and he lowers his face close to hers. She brushes her lips against his, her eyes always open, always widely staring back.

He exhales raggedly, takes her mouth, and forces her against the wall. His knee opens her legs.

And every Sunday, Elysia has a funny habit. She sighs.

* * *

The day she met Frank Archer, Elysia had decided to commit suicide.

Her life had been uneventful to that point. She had finished school. She had not left home. She had begun dabbling in alchemy. She had not stopped feeling cold and empty.

She returned to papa's grave, even if it wasn't Sunday or even the afternoon, and the night rain pounded down on her. She had stopped speaking to him at this point -- really, every child grows up to realize that her dead father can't answer her questions beyond the grave. He can't reach rotting arms up to hold her when she's lonely, and he can't impart a cadaver's wisdom when she's afraid.

She stared at the tombstone -- too dark now to read the epitaph -- and watched it as though it had betrayed her. Everyone always told her how good a man her father was.

It hurt all the more because she couldn't remember that herself. A good man wouldn't let himself die so easily. A great man, a truly memorable one, wouldn't let himself fade away under the dirt.

He would fight.

Just like that man was doing when he slumped in front of her, his body nothing but blood despite the rain. Gunshots followed him, ripping through the air, melting into the snarling thunder.

He lay there, seething and choking.

Lightning introduced them. He stared at her, and Elysia looked back, and she didn't know what to do. So that man barked the first order she was ever given in her life. He snarled at her to hide him.

So she did.

He was Frank Archer, an old military officer, one who led the most powerful fronts against the historic seige into Lior. He lost his army there, and they thought him dead. He resurfaced only to try to murder Brigadier General Roy Mustang. The man's lieutenant, Riza Hawkeye, thwarted that. Frank Archer was thought dead again, but fought to survive bullets holed through his lungs, where he was to await questioning and ultimately trial.

But Archer managed to escape military custody. Soldiers loyal to the man managed to pull him out, still half-healed, and stole him into hiding. He would remain a threat to the government for those years to follow.

There was a resurgence by his men the night Elysia found him, the night she saved his life. The night he saved hers.

She wouldn't end her life now. She would become part of his.

* * *

One day, their bodies were left tangled across the bed, the sheets old and musty from disuse. It was a surprise he ever slept. The only time the man ever eased -- or appeared to -- were these moments after he took control of her and after she gladly let him.

He was gentle then, touching her hair, running the backs of his knuckles along her face.

Elysia asked Frank if he remembered the night they met. Of course he did. She told him her secret, that it was the night she planned to die.

"Now why would you do something as stupid as that?" Archer asked her sharply as those gentle fingers closed around her chin. He pointed her face up to his, so his lidded eyes could have hers. "I'd assume your father would've taught you that one thing. Even a wasted life isn't as bad as a pointless death. Don't follow in his footsteps."

"I'm sorry," Elysia said.

* * *

One day, she caught her mother having tea with Captain Roy Mustang.

He once had a higher rank. Before the Parliament, he was a very powerful man. They even offered him a coveted place in their new oligarchy. He rejected it, then abandoned all his rank that he achieved through alchemy. He reentered the military as a grunt.

He had their uniform on when he came to visit that afternoon. Gracia had moved around the table to his side to proffer him his cup, but remained there, her hands busily fixing his uneven lapels. His one eye watched her. She looked up, and Elysia saw their eyes had met.

For an instant, she thought Mustang had kicked her mother; Gracia was suddenly breathless when she apologized to him, rambling on about funny habits and not really thinking and it's been so long but it really hasn't.

Elysia thinks she decided to hate Mustang at that point.

Later on, Captain Mustang went to leave. He turned to get his hat and Elysia was holding it. He always had trouble with acknowledging her. He could barely look her in the face, and when he did, it was never in the eye. But he had to this time, with her eyeing the insignia of Amestris on his uniform cap. She handed it to him with a smile.

His one eye smoothed out the lines that began to accumulate at the corner, little crinkles and worries. When he took his hat, Elysia asked him if his other eye ever hurt.

"When it rains," he said.

* * *

Frank Archer controls everything about Elysia. He arranges their meetings, and when she's not making love to him, when she's not making sounds against his rough hands on her body, she's making sure to follow his every order. Once her life was in disarray, but he's stopped that, and now she's begun to feel. She feels respect and fear for him, also love; she feels a growing disgust towards the government that is offering itself up to weakness; she feels a deep hatred burning for Roy Mustang, the man who murdered her father and yet returns to drink her mother's tea.

Sometimes she can't do anything but feel, and every Sunday it's a relief, because he is there, and he's touching her, and he's bringing it all back to order. He knows about her old curiousity with alchemy, and he's made her continue it, and in secret she learns as much as she can.

She's a natural.

Sometimes he tells her stories: about his youth, about his military past, but mostly about the wrongs that were committed against him. He shows her his scars and they are his reminders of old weaknesses he's had to correct. Even he has much to learn.

Most of the time, he's a sullen man, quiet and purposeful, a broken Colonel who wants it all back. Other times, he moves tightly, like a clenched fist, and looks at his bedroom as though it were a cage, hating it because he can't leave. He is only grateful because he has his men, he has Elysia, and he has his plans.

The day comes when the darkness leaves him, when decision is roasting in his eyes.

Archer draws back the curtains on his bedroom window, emboldened to look out on the bright world. The sneer on his face is the same one he's had since his old rank. It's his funny habit.

"Elysia. Did you know there's a way to bring your father back?"


End file.
